The Perfect Snowball
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: GWLL femslash. Making the perfect snowball out of the snow that had fallen on Hogwarts is something Luna knows how to do better than Ginny, but Ginny's perfectly willing to learn. COMPLETE.


**Title:** The Perfect Snowball  
 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
 **Summary:** Making the perfect snowball out of the snow that had fallen on Hogwarts is something Luna knows how to do better than Ginny, but Ginny's perfectly willing to learn.  
 **Wordcount** : 1600  
 **Content Notes:** Fluff, Hogwarts eighth year, established relationship  
 **Pairing:** Ginny/Luna, background Ron/Hermione  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Author's Notes:** This is an Advent fic for thady's request: _Ginny/Luna. Nothing to angsty please. Something in winter with snow, with friendship and magic and healthily dealing with the aftermath of the war, old and new traditions._

 **The Perfect Snowball**

Ginny sighed as her snowball fell apart in her hands. No matter what spells she cast to try and make them stay together, it never worked.

She pushed her hair behind her ears with cold fingers and scowled when she saw Ron getting ready to throw one at her. He tried to drop it and widen his eyes and act innocent, but she saw through him, the way she always had since the war. At least he had finally asked Hermione out, so she didn't have to roll her eyes through _that_ nonsense anymore.

"Truce, Gin?" he offered hopefully. His gaze was straying towards Gryffindor Tower, anyway. He wanted to go in and find Hermione, Ginny knew. She was studying with a book in front of the fire and an enormous hourglass that told her the time to their NEWTs in months, weeks, days, hours, and seconds.

"Sure. I'm going to go find Luna, anyway."

"Right," said Ron, and turned to trot away. "Don't do anything we wouldn't do!"

Ginny snorted at his back. He and Hermione were "we" more than they were separate, now. She wondered if Ron had noticed yet.

If not, she was going to surprise him with it someday at breakfast, when he had soup in his mouth.

Ginny turned and wandered away into the snow. It fell whispering around her, but even the whispering she could hear only at a distance, like people behind the door in another room. The air soared in and out of her lungs as she breathed it, and the cold there was like a playful slap. She glanced around for some glimpse of Luna. She knew she was outside because she had discussed going out to play with Nargles this morning.

 _There she is._ Ginny recognized the bright red flash of the coat she'd given Luna-the coat she'd enchanted so it would always stay with Luna and wrap itself around her if the outside air was below a certain temperature. No more clothes-stealing by bullies or Luna wandering around half-naked was going to happen on _Ginny's_ watch.

Luna still sat in the middle of the snow, of course, kneading together a snowball. Ginny sat next to her and waited to be noticed.

"The Nargles told me something interesting today," Luna suddenly announced.

"Did they? What was it?" Ginny leaned over to look more closely at Luna's hands. She didn't think she'd ever seen that method of putting together a snowball before, but it seemed to be working.

"That you don't know how to put together a snowball."

Ginny's face felt warmer than her leather-gloved hands. She cleared her throat a little. "I'm not _good_ at it. Not with this kind of snow. I'm better at other kinds."

"But this is the snow we have." Luna put down her own ball of what looked like white dough and stared at Ginny. "You can't make up other snow to have when this is the one in front of you."

Ginny would have argued, but it would have been useless, knowing Luna. She just sighed out long and slow and asked, "Teach me the right way, then?"

Luna studied her, then reached out and clasped Ginny's hands. "You're going to have to take your gloves off," she said, a little severely.

Ginny did, and tried not to shiver the minute the wind swept down on her in response. Her hands always got cold first.

Admittedly, having them warmed up between Luna's palms was a pretty nice way to make sure they didn't get _colder_.

"You surround your fingers with a silent aura of magic." Luna's breath was warm, too, as she bent over Ginny's hands like she was going to read her palm in Divination. "It serves to reach out and tell the snow what shape it should be in."

Ginny blinked. She had heard of people willing their senses to be sharper, but not often, because that kind of wandless magic was tricky and a potion was almost always easier. "How do I do that?"

"You surround them."

Luna was looking at her so sternly that Ginny braced herself to try. She closed her eyes and reached out, carefully, inside her head. She tried to think of the shape of her fingers in Luna's hands, the way they had calluses from brooms on them, the splatter of ink she'd cleaned off the corner of her palm yesterday, how it felt when she was shoving herself off the end of a chair to stand, even the way the snowball she'd made had felt as it fell apart.

"Ahhh."

Ginny opened her eyes expecting to see thestrals, because only they made Luna sound like that normally. But instead, she saw the faintest flicker of a white aura around her fingers, as if she had dipped them in shining diamond dust.

The minute she looked, of course, the aura stopped flickering and dimmed into nothingness. But it had been there. Ginny looked up and shook her head. "Is that what it's like?" she whispered. "Can we really call our magic to us like that?"

"Of course we can." Luna touched her elbow and gave her a dreamy smile. "I'm always telling you about the possibilities of what we can accomplish. You don't believe me all the time."

There was a note of sorrow beneath those words. Ginny leaned over and kissed her lips, as tender a gesture and an apology as she could make it. "I'm sorry. I hope I haven't disappointed you in the past."

"You haven't disappointed me now. That's all that matters."

Ginny held Luna's eyes, long and warm, for a second, before she looked back at her fingers. "How do I get the magic to last long enough to manipulate the snow?"

As Luna showed her, face shining, Ginny sank quietly into the reverie that seemed to overcome her every time she was with Luna. So serene, so deep, even though she had once felt frustrated when Luna talked all the time about magical creatures that Ginny had never seen before.

Who knew that it would only take a snowball to make her feel like she belonged here, at Luna's side?

Luna relaxed with a long sigh, finally, and shook her head. "I think that's it," she said, when Ginny gave her a confused glance. "All I can teach you. You have to have the will to call it forth yourself, as the White Harpy said when she took the rainbow north."

Luna leaned back on her heels and gave Ginny an expectant look. Ginny nipped her lip nearly hard enough to draw blood, then nodded and raised her hands.

Calling the magic was harder than she'd anticipated. Even with all of Luna's instructions ringing in her head ( _look at your hands, not me; want it more than you want anything else; focus on the effects of the magic_ ), she still wanted to look at her, and want her, and focus on her.

But then she thought of how pleased Luna would be if Ginny managed to make what Luna had taught her work, and she focused on that, instead. On how the magic puffed around her, how she could feel it rushing through her blood along with the desire to please Luna if she _really_ concentrated, how-

The magic around her fingers almost burst into white flame, it was so concentrated. Ginny reeled back with a yelp, and Luna piled snow into her palms. Her eyes were more incandescent than the light.

"Make it! Make it now!"

And when Ginny touched the snowflakes, even though she thought she would lose the magic again any second because of her own surprise, that wasn't what happened. Instead, the magic, which she had called for one purpose on the surface and another one that she would have trouble admitting, circulated through the flakes and tightly packed them, and she held a snowball in her hand that was the most perfect in the world.

Ginny looked up, and Luna leaned over and kissed her. The kiss would have melted the snowball if it hadn't been made with magic, Ginny was fairly certain.

As it was, she dropped her snowball back into the general mass of the snow as she snatched Luna's shoulders and kissed her back.

Luna pulled back only when her lips were so kiss-swollen that she looked as if she'd been using makeup charms. She trailed her hand through Ginny's hair and stared at her in silent, pure happiness. Ginny stared right back.

"That was about more than the snowball."

"That was about showing that I can listen to you."

Luna gave another smile at that, one more mysterious than Ginny had ever seen, and she drew Ginny to her feet with her in a single swift pull that made Ginny waver back and forth when they were finally up. Luna kissed her once more and pulled her towards Hogwarts.

"Listen to me when I tell you that I need a warm fireplace and a place to relax in so I can warm up. Your hands are wonderful, but they can't go everywhere."

"Not yet," said Ginny, and held Luna's eyes, and waited for her to deny that.

But Luna only smiled, then grabbed Ginny's wrists, and brought one in a slight caress over her breasts. The other she held, and kept hold of, as they walked towards the castle.

That was the best "not yet" Ginny had ever received.

 **The End.**


End file.
